The Story of Us
by WanderingWriter888
Summary: How the Rossi-Hotchner family came to be. Warning, will contain spanking/corporal punishment of a minor in later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

_**This is my first story, so reviews are much appreciated. The story will eventually contain spanking or corporal punishment of a minor. If that is not your thing, then please stop reading.**_

_**The story is a bit AU. It's not so AU that it will have aliens or zombies, but it definitely is not canon.**_

_**For the purposes of this universe, Jack Hotchner does not exist.**_

* * *

Once upon a time, there were two men named Aaron and David. They were introduced in their younger years and had cultivated a long and strong relationship, first as co-workers and then as friends. As the years went by, their friendship gradually deepened into something more. Both had tried to live by the rules of society; they had tried to have 'normal' relationships with the opposite sex but they could never seem to make it work. After their marriages fell apart (more than once for Dave), they finally admitted to themselves that they were much more attracted to each other than they were to anyone else and, once they finally acted on their feelings, they each knew they were with their soul mate.

Their love sustained them through the good times and bad. While some of their family members stood by them as they declared their intense feelings for each other, others saw their love as an abominable life choice and refused to have any part of it. This saddened both David and Aaron, but their true friends and family stood by them and helped celebrate many joyous occasions in their lives; they almost made up for the missing, close-minded family members.

Like most couples, Aaron and David desired a child. They both had demanding jobs that required them to go toe-to-toe with the worst elements of society and they knew they needed a bright light in their lives to keep the darkness at bay. They understood that it would be time consuming and expensive to conceive a child, and that much of society was against the idea of them becoming parents, but neither of them had ever really cared about what other people thought of them, or their lives, so that wasn't much of a factor in their decision. Thankfully, since they both made good livings in their respective jobs at the BAU, and David was an accomplished author, money was not a barrier, so they had their pick of surrogate mothers and, as luck would have it, conception occurred early in the process…

"Let me help you, Anne," Aaron said as he came around to the front passenger side of the SUV. He held out his hand, and the large pregnant woman grasped it and hauled herself out of the vehicle with a groan.

"I can't believe I'm going to get even bigger," she grumbled as Dave joined them and they began making their way into the large medical complex. "I'm seven and a half months along and I'm a frigging whale! How is that even possible? I've eaten more healthy food in the last six months than I have in my entire life!"

Dave grinned as the woman checked in with the medical assistant at the front desk and then sat down heavily to wait for her doctor to call her. "Well, I'm not an expert," he said, "But maybe it has to do with that baby you're hauling around?"

"All I know is that you'd better start saving your pennies now guys, because your son is a healthy eater; God help you when he's a teenager!"

"Anne Meadows?" The nurse called out. The pregnant woman once again struggled to her feet with help from the two men. They watched as she walked down the hallway and waited for the nurse to call them back.

XXX

Twenty minutes later, after the doctor had finished the exam, Dave and Aaron were in the exam room getting an update on the pregnancy.

"Anne is in excellent health," Dr. Cantor told them as she stood next to the mother-to-be. "Her weight is perfect, her blood work all looks great, and everything else looks fine."

Both men exhaled twin sighs of relief at that. "So there's no indication of any more pre-term labor?" Hotch asked hesitantly. A month previous, the surrogate mother had started contracting. Luckily, a round of drugs and an overnight stay in the hospital had stopped the early labor and their son had stayed tucked up inside of her, where he belonged.

"I am not seeing any evidence of labor," the doctor told him as she squeezed a dollop of jelly onto Anne's bare belly. She grabbed the sonogram probe, placed it into the cold goo and, a minute later, a strong heartbeat could be heard throughout the room.

"That's our kid, Aaron," Dave said breathlessly, as he gripped Anne's hand and watched the screen.

"I can't believe it," he responded in awe, as he stared at the grainy picture of their baby.

The doctor gave them a moment to savor what they were hearing and seeing before speaking. "Like mom here, your baby also looks very healthy. As Anne can attest to, she is quite mobile, her size is right where we want it to be, and I don't see any birth defects. In short, your daughter is perfect."

"Hey doc, I think you're reading your notes wrong; we're having a son," Dave said absently as he continued to stare at the screen.

The doctor's brow furrowed as she took a second look at the sonogram monitor. "No, you're definitely having a girl. Otherwise, your son would be missing a pretty important part of his anatomy."

That got both Dave and Aaron's attention and they tore their eyes away from the machine and focused on the doctor. "But the last time we were here, they told us it was a boy," Hotch told her. "Did something happen in the meantime? Could this be a birth defect?" A million horrible thoughts sped through his mind as the doctor flipped through the medical file. Her furrowed brow suddenly smoothed as she began nodding to herself.

"I see what happened," she told them. "The sonogram technician who performed the last scan was new and she must have misread it. It's lucky you got me today, otherwise you would have had a major surprise in the delivery room."

Both men wore similar looks of shock on their faces and, without knowing it, the same thought was racing across both of their minds. 'What the hell are we going to do with a girl?'

XXX  
Two hours later, after they had dropped Anne off at her apartment, the two men arrived home and beelined it straight to the liquor cabinet.

"What in the hell are we going to do with a girl, Aaron?" Dave asked, finally voicing their unspoken question, after taking a more than healthy swig of scotch.

Hotch followed suit and took a large draw of his drink before answering quietly, "I have no idea."

"We're two guys for Chrissake!" Rossi declared, a little hysterically. "We're gay! What do we know about girls?"

"I believe all of our ex-wives would agree what you just said," Hotch agreed dryly as he raised his glass in a mock toast to his statement.

Dave glared at his husband for a moment. "Would you please join me in my hysteria for a minute? How can you be so calm? The idea of having a kid was scary enough when we thought it was a boy, but a girl? At least with a son we would have had been able to draw on our own experiences to help guide him through his own, but that idea is out the window now!"

"Can you imagine the awkward conversations we are going to have to have with her?"

"Jesus," Rossi breathed as he took another gulp of his drink. "I never even thought about that.

Hotch nodded grimly. "Dating. Puberty. Why she has two daddies. Sex."

"I am officially, here and now, calling _not it_ to all of those discussions," Dave told his lover firmly. "Well, except for the dating one. That talk will be short; no dating, ever. End of story."

"You'll see just how quickly my calm demeanor will fade if you even _try_ to stick me with those moments, Dave," Hotch said quietly but forcefully. "We'll BOTH be sitting through those  
horrifying talks, understand?"

Dave, not wanting to make matters worse than they already were, nodded grimly as he refilled his drink. Since it was a Friday, and neither of them had to be back at the office until Monday, they decided the best way to handle the issue was to get drunk and see if it helped in any way.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you for all of the reviews for the first chapter! A little more backstory in this chapter, and then we'll meet their daughter.

* * *

At nine o'clock the next morning, which both Dave and Aaron considered an ungodly hour considering they had fallen asleep/passed out in alcohol induced stupors only five hours previous, the doorbell rang.

"Who in the hell could that be?" Dave growled into his pillow, which he had thrown over his head to block out the noise.

"No idea, but could you go check before they decide to ring the bell again?" His lover asked in a strangled voice.

"Why me?"

"Because there is a very real possibility that I am going to throw up the second I move from this bed, and I would rather not do it right in the face of whomever it is who is ringing our doorbell. So could you _please _go answer it?" Dave looked over at Aaron and saw that he was an unnatural shade of green and he was swallowing very heavily.

"You owe me," he growled. Hotch nodded his appreciation and that small movement did him in. In a flash, he was out of the bed and running for the toilet. A minute later, just as the doorbell rang again, Dave could hear the sounds of heaving coming from the bathroom.

"Damn kid, can't hold his damn liquor," he grumbled as he made his way down the stairs. As he approached the door, the bell rang for a third time. "Hold your goddamn horses!" He shouted as he opened the door. On the other side of it stood an amused Emily Prentiss.

"You look like death warmed over," she told him with a grin.

Dave just glared at her. "What in the hell are you doing here, Prentiss?" He growled.

Emily laughed as she pushed past him and into the house. "Your glare is getting better, but you'll need to practice more before it's as scary as Hotch's." She entered the kitchen and found herself face to face with the man she'd just been talking about. "See, now _that's _intimidating," she told the older man as she pointed at his lover.

"What's going on Prentiss? Do we have a case?" Hotch asked in a gravelly voice. Dave pushed him into a chair, poured a glass of water, and handed it to him.

"Nope," she said as she sat down across the table from him. "I was just wondering how the two of you were handling the idea that you won't be teaching your child how to pee standing up."

Hotch nearly dropped the now empty glass in his hand. "How did you find out about that? We didn't go back to the BAU and we haven't told anyone yet!"

"Exactly. Did you really expect Penelope Garcia to just sit on her hands after you didn't return?" Emily asked incredulously.

"What did she do, hack into Anne's medical records?" Dave asked. When Emily didn't meet his eyes, he knew he had his answer. "She did, didn't she!"

"She knows that's illegal, right?" Hotch asked angrily. "Hacking into medical records is a-" His tirade was interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell

"Who the fuck is THAT?" Rossi asked loudly, throwing his hands up in the air. "Doesn't anyone fucking call before coming over anymore?" He made his way back to the front door, opened it and found his older brother on the other side.

"Tony? What in the hell are YOU doing here?"

"Well that's a wonderful greeting, little brother," the older man said as he embraced him. "What can I tell you, I got a call from the Godmother telling me there may be a problem, so I decided to hightail it down here." Tony was a retired FDNY firefighter who did freelance fire safety consulting in New York. As a result, he made his own schedule and could come to DC when needed.

"I should have known Emily was behind this," Dave grumbled as he stood aside to let his big brother into the house.

"I also brought some of Sarah's things with me; I thought you could use them."

"You didn't have to do that, Tony," Dave said softly. Fifteen years previous, Tony had been rushing his heavily pregnant wife to the hospital to give birth when they were hit by a drunk driver. Both his wife and his soon-to-be born daughter Sarah died in the crash. It had been touch and go with Tony for awhile, but he pulled through. He'd never remarried and he remained childless, but Dave knew he would have made a wonderful father, which is why he and Aaron had asked him to be their child's Godfather.

"I did have to," his brother argued. "I want to know that the clothes and toys will go to good use. Besides, I've left the nursery as a shrine for the past fifteen years; it's time to move on."

"Thanks man."

"It's fine Davie, really," Tony said as they entered the kitchen. "Ah, there's the other daddy and the Godmother. How're you doing, sweetheart?" He asked as he pulled Emily into a bone crushing embrace.

"I'm good Tony; thanks for coming down."

"I needed to make sure these two guys were okay with the news. Apparently I was too late," he said as he released her and looked at the obviously hung over couple.

"What?" Hotch asked his brother-in-law irritably as the older man clapped him on the back in a brotherly gesture.

"Really? All of this just because you're getting a different flavor of kid than you expected?"

Hotch huffed. "Look, I'll admit that we handled the news less than admirably, but you have to understand, we had plans! We had gotten used to the fact that we'd have a kid who was a lot like we are. We're two guys, how are we going to handle a girl?"

"You're going to treat her just like you would've treated your son," Tony told them. "Sure, it's not going to be 100% easy, but that's why you picked such a superb Godfather."

Emily nodded. "And you'll have a Godmother nearby to help you out. Face it guys, you're making a mountain out of a mole hill."

"She's right you know," Dave said to his lover.

"I know; it was just a shock," Hotch said, ashamed of the way he'd originally felt at the idea of having a daughter instead of a son.

"That's why we're here to help," Emily told him. "First thing we need to do is change the bedroom; you have it dark blue with a baseball theme."

"What do you propose we do, paint it pink?"

"Hell no!" Emily responded. "Just because you're having a daughter doesn't mean it has to look like Barbie threw up in it! I have some cans of light purple paint in my car; that's a good, gender-neutral color for her room."

"Does the family know about that I'm having a daughter instead of a son?" Dave asked his brother, not sure if he wanted to know the answer.

Tony looked uncomfortable. "They do. Ma sends her regards-"

"But she's not coming down once the baby is born." Dave finished, knowing his mother's feeling about his new lifestyle.

His brother shook his head. "No, she isn't, but dad is going to try to make it down for a few days. Cath…well, Cath is still thinking about it. I'm sure she'll eventually come around, little brother." Catherine Rossi-Marsh was Dave's twin sister and she was a very devout Catholic. She had been trying to wrap her mind around the idea of a gay twin, but she was having trouble and it was hurtful for Dave.

Tony stood up. "Okay, let's get some coffee into these scraggly looking bastards and then we have a nursery to paint."

xxx

Later that night, after the Godparents had left, Dave and Aaron sat on the floor of the nursery going through the boxes of clothes Tony had given them.

"This is adorable," Dave said, holding up a small pink dress.

"So are these," Aaron said with a smile as he held up the tiny matching sandals.

Dave continued to stare at the dress for a moment before lifting his head. "We can do this, right?"

"You mean raise a daughter?"

"No, I mean raise a kid in general. You had an abusive father growing up, and most of my family won't talk to me because of the decisions I've made as an adult. I don't want to screw a kid up."

"We won't," Aaron said firmly. "Between the two of us, your brother, Emily, and the team, we're going to have more help raising this kid than we ever could've imagined. If anything, we're going to have too much help. And no matter what, she'll be raised in a house full of love."

"You're damn right she will!" Dave said as he reached into a shopping bag. A moment later a huge grin overtook his face. "Did you see what Emily got us?"

Hotch shook his head, so Dave held up the small onesie; on the front it said 'My Daddies Love Me.'

"It's true; I love her and I haven't even met her yet," Dave said. "How is that possible?"

"I don't know, but I feel the same way," Hotch said with a smile.

* * *

_Reviews feed the muse!_


	3. Chapter 3

_**This chapter contains the disciplinary spanking of a minor. If that is not your thing, stop reading.**_

_**I should probably mention that I do not own any part of Criminal Minds.**_

* * *

11 years later…

"Ooooooh, did you see that sign?" Magdeline Rossi-Hotchner exclaimed from the backseat of the SUV. "That church is having their spring carnival this weekend with rides and games! Can we go? Please, please, please, please, _please_?" She begged. She would use her puppy dog eyes, which she knew both of her fathers couldn't resist, but they were facing front and couldn't see her. She considered that to be a blessing considering what she was doing in the backseat.

"If we don't get called on a case, we'll try to make it there, okay Magpie?" Dave said, using his nickname for his daughter.

Magdeline, or Maggie as everyone called her, nodded enthusiastically. She was used to plans being changed or cancelled at the last minute and she generally rolled with the punches.

"You want to see if Lizzie and Sarah want to go with us, Maggie May?" Hotch asked as he navigated the DC Beltway in morning rush hour traffic. His nickname for his daughter came from the classic rock song from Rod Stewart, which was one of his favorites. Neither of them had even considered the name Magdeline when thinking about names for their daughter, but their surrogate mother had suggested it during one of their many baby naming arguments, and it had stuck. They had originally planned for the surrogate mother to be a larger part of their daughter's life, but her life was cut tragically short by cancer only two years after giving birth to Maggie. While her death was tragic, Anne hadn't been Maggie's biological mother. No, they had used an anonymous egg donor in order to make things a bit easier on Anne.

"Really? That would be so much fun, thanks dad!" Maggie said enthusiastically. Hotch wisely had not suggested she invite her third best friend, Fiona. Fiona's parents had made it very clear to him and Dave that they thought 'gay' was code for 'perverted.' They wouldn't allow their daughter to spend time in the two men's presence but, thankfully, they allowed Maggie to be friends with their daughter. While it didn't thrill either man knowing their daughter spent time with homophobes, they knew she needed stable friendships.

"What are you working on back there?"

Crap! The jig was up! Maggie had tried hard not to show her dads that she was doing schoolwork in the backseat, but her dad had caught her anyway. It didn't surprise her much; both of her dads seemed to be able to read her mind and it was like they knew when she was going to misbehave before she even did it. She decided to play it off as no big deal.

"This?" She asked innocently. "Oh, I forgot that my book report was due today, so I'm just finishing it up."

Hotch's eyes narrowed as he looked at her in the rearview mirror. "Is that the same book report I asked you about last night? The one you assured me was finished so I would let you watch TV?" He asked sternly.

"Yeah, but I only have a little left and it was a good episode of my show!"

"Do I have to tell you that's the same thing as lying to me?"

"No," she said looking down at the floor and kicking lightly at the carpet.

"And are you allowed to watch TV before your homework is done?"

"No."

"No, you're not," Hotch affirmed. "And you're going spend some time over my knee at bedtime tonight to reinforce that rule."

Maggie's head jerked up at that. "But dad! My homework is almost done!"

"I don't care, it should have been done last night."

"That's not fair! It's a stupid rule! What if a really good show is on at 5:00pm, huh? That means I would have to do it practically at school!"

"Hey," Dave cut in. "Keep arguing, and I'll warm your panties right now and your dad will still take care of the homework thing before bed tonight."

Maggie flopped back in her seat, folded her arms across her chest, glared at the back of his head and grumbled to herself in, what she thought, was too low of a volume for them to hear. "Dumb rule…wanna watch TV…hate school…stupid book…"

"Aaron, pull over at the next exit," Dave said. It was an empty threat, he would never embarrass his daughter by spanking her in public, but she didn't know that.

"No, it's okay, I'll stop!" Maggie said in alarm; apparently she had been louder than she thought. She watched anxiously as they approached the exit ramp and then breathed a sigh of relief when they passed it.

Ten minutes later, they were at her school dropping her off. "Be good today, Magpie," Dave said as he kissed the top of her head.

"I will, daddy," she said a bit sullenly.

"I'd better not get a call from your teacher telling me you didn't turn in your book report," Hotch warned.

"Yeah, yeah," was her answer as she walked toward the school building. She didn't know how she was going to finish her book report by the time the bell rang, but she knew she had to or she would be in even deeper trouble with her parents.

**Xxx**

Later that night, Maggie breathed a sigh of relief; her dads seemed to have forgotten what had happened that morning and that was fine with her. It helped that she had been on her best behavior since the bus dropped her off at the FBI headquarters that afternoon. The daycare there had afterschool programs for kids through middle school and Dave and Aaron took full advantage of the award winning program and their extended hours.

After her dads had picked her up from daycare, they'd gone home and had a barbeque on the deck in the backyard. She helped make the salad, she set the picnic table and she helped clean up afterwards. After dinner, she and her dads played catch and she used the old baseball mitt that her dad had used when he played baseball in college. Once it got too dark to see the ball, they moved into the house and all watched a movie together. Maggie liked watching movies with her dads because they usually let her sit between them on the couch and it made her feel safe and it was comfy. Also, since it was a Friday, they let her stay up a little later than normal to watch the movie. As soon as it was over, she yawned loudly.

"I think it's bedtime for somebody," Dave said as he tickled her ribs. She gave a shriek of laughter as she jumped up to get away from him.

"Stop it, daddy," she said through her giggles. "I'm not tired."

"Why don't you get ready for bed?" Hotch made it sound like a suggestion, but she really didn't have a choice in the matter; it was getting late and it was bedtime. "We'll be there in a few minutes but if you're ready before we get up there, I want you to find a corner and stand in it."

Maggie whipped her head around and looked at him in surprise. "Sweetheart, we still have to deal with what happened this morning," he said gently. "I promised you a spanking at bedtime and that's what you're going to get. Now get upstairs; we'll be up shortly."

The girl knew that if she argued, the spanking would be worse, so she kept silent but she couldn't help stomping loudly all the way up the stairs.

"When her anger comes through like that? That's when I know she's yours," Hotch told his lover.

Dave snorted, "Yeah, well, when she's able to argue her way out of something by using lawyer logic? That's when I know she's yours." Neither man knew which of them was Maggie's biological father. In order to conceive her, they'd taken sperm from both Dave and Aaron, mixed them together and used the mixture to fertilize the donor egg. That way, neither of them was her 'real' father more than the other.

"This is the worst part of being a parent," Hotch sighed. "Having to discipline her."

"I know," Dave nodded, "But we have to do it; she needs structure and accountability in her life."

"You're right. Well I suppose I should go get this over with," Aaron said as both he and Dave stood up.

Meanwhile, up in her bedroom, Maggie was changing into her nightgown when an idea struck her. Her dad didn't seem very mad, so he would probably spank her over her nightgown; that meant he wouldn't know how many pairs of underpants she was wearing! She quickly crossed over to her dresser and opened the top drawer. Score! One of her dads must have done her laundry recently because the drawer was filled with panties. She quickly started pulling on pair after pair and she had just stepped into her sixth pair when she heard footsteps on the stairs. In a flash, she pulled them up, dropped the back of her nightgown and ran into the corner. She had just faced the wall when she heard the door open.

"All set, Mags?" Dave asked.

"Uh huh," she said as she turned away from the corner.

"Good girl" he said as he kissed the top of her head and gave her a quick hug. "Goodnight honey."

"Goodnight daddy," she said.

Dave gave Hotch a look that said 'good luck,' and then left the room. Unless it was something serious that required both of them there to make a point, both of them usually didn't stay in the room while their daughter was getting a spanking. They didn't want it to seem like they were ganging up on her and they didn't want to needlessly embarrass her.

As soon as the door shut behind Dave, Aaron sat down on the bed and called his daughter over to him. She stood in front of him with her head down, already sniffling back tears.

"You understand why you're getting a spanking, right?" Hotch asked his daughter. She nodded at the floor and then looked up at him.

" 'Cause I told you my homework was done when it wasn't," she said and then tried a last ditch effort. "But I get it now dad, you don't have to spank me. I've learned my lesson, I promise!"

"Well I'm glad you understand what you did was wrong, but you're still getting a spanking," her dad told her as he gently pulled her around to his right side. As he tipped her over his knee, Maggie prayed that he wouldn't lift her nightgown because then the jig would be up, and if he saw how many pairs of panties she was wearing, she had no doubt that he would remove all of them and spank her bare.

Hotch knew his daughter didn't think what she had done was a big deal and, in the whole scheme of things, it wasn't, but she'd done it before and he wanted to try to stop her from doing it again, which is why he felt a spanking was necessary. It didn't need to be a particularly long or hard spanking, so he left her nightgown where it was and raised his hand.

Smack! Smack! Smack! 'Sweet,' Maggie thought as she stared at the carpet beneath her face. 'It worked! It doesn't even sting!'

As Hotch brought his hand down on his daughter's bottom, he knew something was off. First, her seat was much cushier than usual; it was as if she was wearing a diaper. And second, she didn't seem to be reacting to the smacks. Normally she tried to hold out on crying for as long as possible, but she usually wriggled around like a fish out of water from the start.

"What the-" he said as he raised her nightgown and then stopped in the middle of his sentence. "What's this?" He asked rhetorically.

"Um, my panties?" Maggie said, looking over her shoulder.

"How many pairs?"

"I dunno," she said petulantly as she stared daggers into floor beneath her. Damn! He'd caught on and now her ass was literally grass.

"Well let's count, shall we?" Her dad asked as he reached for the first pair of panties. A moment later, 5 pairs had been pulled down and she was praying that he left the sixth, and final pair up where they belonged. Her hopes faded as she felt him grasp the waistband of the last pair.

"Did you really think this was a good idea?" He asked.

"You never told me I _couldn't _wear 6 pairs of underwear!"

Hotch, who had been about to pull down the last pair and resume spanking her on her bare bottom, stopped and thought for a minute. Truthfully, a part of him was a tiny bit proud of her ingenuity and the logic of her argument, so he left them in place.

"I am telling you, right now, you should only wear one pair of panties. Got it?" He saw her nod her head. "Good; you're lucky you're keeping this pair on. If you pull something like this again, not only will all of the panties come down, you'll get a spanking per day for each of the pairs you put on." With that, he resumed smacking her bottom and this time he got a reaction out of her.

Maggie felt the smacks rain down on her butt and there was definitely a sting this time. She kicked her legs and wriggled around; even though he wasn't spanking her hard and she had a layer between her dad's hand and her skin, the spanks still burned like fire and she desperately wanted it to end. After a minute of continuous spanks, she shed her first tears. Thankfully for her, the spanking only went on for another ten seconds after that and, after smacking her sit spots a couple of times, her dad stopped the spanking and lowered her nightgown back down over her burning bottom.

"No more lying about homework, okay?" He said gently as he helped her stand. As soon as she was on her feet, her hands flew to her butt and she rubbed it to try to put out the fire. She knew her dad was waiting for an answer, so she nodded through her tears. He tried giving her a hug, but she pulled away; she didn't want comfort, she just wanted to be by herself. He didn't take her actions personally. He knew that half the time after a spanking she wanted comfort and half of the time she wanted solitude, so he helped her into bed where she laid on her stomach and he tucked her in, setting her favorite stuffed bear next to her.

"Can we still go to the carnival tomorrow?" She asked as she snaked her arm around the stuffed animal and cried her last tears.

"Of course," her dad said. He and Dave used spanking as their primary discipline for her and, normally, they did not add more punishment to it. Of course, if she did something really serious, or she kept repeatedly doing things she knew were wrong, they would tack on a grounding or extra chores, but her offense today had been mild and he saw no reason to take away the carnival.

Hotch smoothed down her hair in a loving gesture. "Goodnight Maggie May, I love you."

She just sniffled into her pillow and didn't say anything back to him. It stung him a bit, but he had just been smacking her butt so he didn't really expect her to be happy with him right now. He silently left her room, closing the door behind him.

**Xxx**

Later that night, both Dave and Aaron were awakened by a loud crash of thunder. "We're going to have company in about ten seconds," Dave murmured tiredly. Sure enough, by the time they got to the count of seven, there was a frantic knocking at their bedroom door.

"Come in," Aaron called out, proud that even during a scary thunderstorm, their daughter still remembered their cardinal rule about knocking before entering their bedroom.

The door burst open and their daughter flew in, clutching Mr. Bear. "Can I sleep in here?" She asked as she stood at the foot of the bed. Both men nodded simultaneously and she scrambled to the top of the bed and then buried herself under the covers between them. Dave fell back to sleep within minutes and his snoring could be heard clearly in the room.

With the next crack of thunder, Maggie clung to Hotch's side and he could feel her shaking. "It's okay baby," he said as he rubbed her back.

"I don't like thunderstorms," she said shakily. "What if there is a tornado?"

He kissed the top of her head. "Tornadoes happen a lot in the Midwest and down South, but we don't get them much here, so I don't think you have to worry."

"But what if lightning strikes the house?" She said, snuggling closer to him as another loud crack of thunder penetrated the air.

"You're safe here baby, okay? Your daddy and I will protect you." He felt her nod her head against his chest and she became quiet. After a few minutes, he was almost asleep again when he heard her whisper, "I love you dad."

He smiled in the darkness and hugged her a little tighter to him. "I love you too Mags, always and forever."


End file.
